


The Great Escape

by canis_m



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Reunion Sex, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 01:58:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10980969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: If Ray had made a different choice on his way back.





	The Great Escape

Traffic on the 101 kept moving. The exit for Laurel Canyon Boulevard loomed on the right. Ray pulled the faded photo of his son from the sun visor overhead. 

By the time he reached the school it'd be noon recess. He could get a last look, maybe. Chad wouldn't even know he was there. No one would, unless Burris had eyes on the fucking playground.

Ray turned the photo in his fingers, into the sun's glare. He thought about what he'd promised Gena, the deal they'd cut. A shitty deal was still a deal. Thought about Ani, back at the Black Rose, expecting him. Expecting him not to take any stupid risks. Forty minutes, he'd told her. Plenty of time.

Hurry anyway, she'd said.

He fixed his eyes on the road. He slid the photo back up top, then reached for the voice recorder.

The exit for Laurel Canyon Boulevard came and went. 

*

At the bar Felicia let him up to the safe room. When he came in, Ani was sitting on one of the cots with their saggy mattresses, her back to the cinderblock wall. She'd cut her hair shorter, dyed it dark, put on fresh clothes: a trim hoodie, more suburban yoga mom than Ventura cop. 

Her eyes on him were the same as before. Maybe warmer. Ray hadn't been sure--even after the phone call in the car, after hearing her voice--how she'd look at him when he came back from doing what he and Frank had done. But she just looked glad to see him. Glad and relieved. Her mouth pulled to one side, like she wanted to smile but smiling was a thing other girls did. Not her. 

Ray wasn't sorry he'd hurried. He slung the bulging duffel bag onto an open cot. 

"Need to divvy this up," he said. 

They split the money between them, among their bags, stuffed bills into pockets and crannies. Ani crammed a cool thousand into each boot with her knives. Felicia went down to the kitchen and brought up a plate of quesadillas, a couple of Modelos. Ray set the plate on Ani's cot, passed her a beer, and took a long swig of his own. He reached into the duffel bag and pulled out five hundred for Felicia. 

She shook her head over the bills. "Should be more careful with these. You'll need them where you're going."

"It's not just for lunch," said Ray.

Felicia eyed him--eyed both of them--then slipped the money into the black apron slung on her hips. "I have customers, so." She nodded downstairs. "We leave in forty-five."

"We'll be ready."

She closed the door behind her. Ray folded a quesadilla wedge into his mouth and chewed slowly, savoring. He couldn't remember the last time food had tasted so good. Ani sat on the cot opposite, watching him. He glanced at her, mouth full of salsa and sour cream. He washed it down with beer and set the bottle on the floor.

"Not hungry?" 

Ani said nothing, only stood, stepped between his legs, and nearly kicked over the bottle. She pushed him back to the mattress and straddled him, grabbing his belt buckle like a bronco buster would take hold of the rein. 

Once Ray's surprise dialed down, her eagerness was catching. A feeling rolled up in him like what he'd felt in the car when they talked on the phone, a little crazy, like giddiness. He let his head flop to the pillow and put his hands on her hips, smoothed his palms up and down the taut denim of her jeans. He liked the flex of her thighs around him, the sureness of her hands as she unbuttoned his fly.

"This what you had in mind when you said 'hurry'?" he asked.

Her glance flicked from his crotch to his face. "Problem with it?"

"No ma'am." By way of full disclosure Ray added, "'M not real clean," but he didn't stop what he was doing, and neither did she. She smelled cleaner than he did, clean and good, if laced with the faint chemical tang of dye. 

Ani huffed a breath through her nose. It was a nice nose. Cute, even. She'd probably knife him in the spleen if he ever said so. 

"Think I give a fuck?"

Ray didn't much try to hide his smile. "Seems to me that's exactly what you're--"

She stopped his mouthing off with two fingers, splaying them on his open lips. Ray raised his eyebrows, then did what seemed like the thing to do, which was open his mouth further and suck them in. 

Ani stared at him, pupils blown dark and wide. When he started to suck, looking up at her with eyes as big and brown as he could get them, she made a garbled noise, then swore, then grabbed his hand with her free one and brought it to the button of her jeans.

He got her fly open, unfolded like the petals of a lily. He fitted his hand in, cupping the heat of her, and rubbed through the sleek fabric of her panties--black, no lace, no frills. Ani made a small, tight sound, a good one, and pushed into his touch. When he kept stroking, her fingers inside his mouth curled, then slipped out so she could work the buttons of his shirt.

Ray kept rubbing her, keeping his touch firm, the way she'd showed him in their flowery motel bed. She uncovered his chest and and peeled off her hoodie, then sank over him, settling all her lithe weight down. She cupped his face, as if the stubble on his cheeks were worth holding onto. When she kissed his mouth Ray sighed, sliding his other hand over her back.

She rocked on him, unhurried but intent, until her panties and his fingers against them were sodden. The wetness went to Ray's head faster than coke. He'd have pitched a fine tent in his jeans by now if she hadn't already opened them. As it was, his cock pressed hot against her hip. He didn't care to presume where else she wanted him to put it. With only one night between them, he wasn't sure what was welcome, and it was best to let the lady set the pace. So far he liked the pace she was setting just fine.

At last Ani reared up, climbing all the way off to shuck her jeans and panties with them. When she straddled him again and took hold of his shaft, her purpose seemed radiantly clear. Any blood left in Ray's head blazed southward, sirens on, but he managed to grunt out the question.

"Condom?" 

She paused. "You picked some up in the raid? Or did your gangster wingman spot you?"

Ray shook his head, then pointed with his grizzled chin at the supply cabinet behind them. He knew Felicia took care of her guests. Ani pursed her lips.

"I don't feel like getting up again," she said, thumbing his cock now with unmerciful lightness. "You told me you were clean."

There hadn't been a lot of conversation, that night in the motel, but there'd been enough. "In that sense, I am. Ninety-nine problems and the clap ain't one."

"Small favors," said Ani, and gave him a decisive squeeze.

Ray tipped his head back, mouth open, no sound coming out. She hadn't taken off her rings. Cool hard metal grazed his cock, up and down the length of it, in triplicate glints. She gave him a few more pumps, almost desultory--he was as hard as he was going to get--then hunkered over him and guided him in.

He groaned at the wet heat of her. Somehow this, too, felt better than it ever had in his whole fucked life, or at least it seemed that way right now. Small favors. "Oh, Jesus."

"Not my name," she said, wriggling down. 

"Ani," he rasped, like it was a question. He hadn't spoken it much, not to her face. She looked at him with dark eyes. Ray thought he could detect some pleasure in them. Fondness, too. He wanted those things. Unlikely as it was--undeserving as he knew himself to be--she seemed prepared to let him have and give them. He groped for her slender hips to clutch and cling.

When she started to ride him in earnest, the cot squeaked. Not only squeaked, but rattled, as if in clear and present danger of collapse. Ray thought the rattling might be audible below, even with the bar's usual musical guest crooning a doleful cover of Beyoncé. _Call your name two three times in a row._ He couldn't bring himself to care. Ani was hot around him and perfect and so slick, with nothing between them. He could barely move for himself, could only hold on and let her have her way. 

Without warning she seized a fistful of his hair. The sudden pull sent shocks down to Ray's tailbone. She leaned over him, breathing hard, still rolling her hips.

"I'm close," she said. 

Ray nudged up to bump her nose with his. "Yeah? Don't wait on me."

Eyes narrowing, she tightened herself around him. "Telling me you're not? The hell you're not, Velcoro. We got a boat to catch."

He hadn't laughed during sex in years. Decades, maybe. There was no sound to it, but the stutter of his breath couldn't be anything else. Ani planted her palms beside his shoulders, surging. He felt her stiffen. She bit her bottom lip as she rode it out.

When she sagged he drew her down where he could kiss her, grasp her neck, kiss her again. It turned out that was what he needed: her mouth warm and wet on his. He came with an artless grunt and shudder, wrapping his arms around her after he did.

She let him hold her, let him go soft inside. For a minute she laid her chin on his shoulder, then mashed her nose into the bare skin of his chest and snuffled. She was smelling him, he realized. Taking long, slow drags. Ray had never heard anything so flattering. He trailed slow fingers up and down her back, under her rucked black t-shirt, along the straps of the bra she hadn't bothered to undo. But he was still in his clothes, too, if rumpled and protruding where it mattered. 

They ought to clean up, get up, finish eating. Have a cigarette. Instead Ray stroked her short, dark hair. 

"I'll grow it out," mumbled Ani. "When we get there."

_When._

Ray tilted his chin to look at her, eye to half-lidded eye. "Right now I like our chances," he said.

*

Blue water pealed away in the wake of the boat. As it pulled out from the wharf, Ani was on high alert, tense-shouldered, still scanning the waterfront for snipers, squad cars, dark SUVs. 

Ray kept an eye out, too, behind his Ray-Bans, but with a strange, buoyant sense of calm. The dream of his father had promised death among the trees. There were no woods in the Pacific. He raised an arm to wave at Felicia, who stood watching on shore, one last time.

Only when they were well out from the harbor, past the Angel's Gate lighthouse with its strict bars of black and white, did Ani turn her back and sag against the gunwale. She wiped her face with one hand, then let it fall and squinted up at the bright sky to the south. She looked at Ray.

He leaned against the gunwale with her, companionable, close enough that their knees and elbows nudged. Sea wind tossed their hair. The boat hummed underneath them. The bag at Ani's feet was full of cash. 

Ray's hand lay on his thigh, parallel to hers. He opened it and turned it toward her, palm up, knowing she would cover it.

**Author's Note:**

> Two years late to this party, but it had to be done. 
> 
> You can find me at [unicornmagic.tumblr.com](unicornmagic.tumblr.com)


End file.
